WARNING: This story contains graphic images of injuries to a child.
In the early afternoon of September 3, Sister Al-Dakki was waiting in line in Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, as a brief humanitarian pause was held for a vaccination campaign to protect sisters against polio and possible paralysis.
Hours later, just minutes after the ceasefire ended, an Israeli airstrike hit their home, leaving Hanan and Misk al-Dakki with missing limbs and their mother.
Three-year-old Hanan lost both legs, while one-year-old Misuk had to have her left leg amputated.
Hanan “was sitting on her mother’s lap when an airstrike blew her into a neighboring house,” the girls’ aunt, Shafa al-Dakki, said at Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Hospital.
“They allow the polio vaccination and then within hours they realize they have no legs. What’s the point of (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu allowing the vaccination?”
More than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed and about 95,000 wounded in Israeli attacks since the war began last fall, according to the latest figures released by the Gaza Strip’s health ministry.The conflict follows a Hamas-led uprising in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, in which Hamas fighters killed 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostages, according to Israel’s tally.
The Israel Defense Forces did not respond to a CBC News request for comment about the Sept. 3 airstrike in Deir al-Bala.
Misk al-Dakki, left, and Hanan al-Dakki, right: The sisters lost both their legs when Israeli forces attacked their home in central Gaza on September 3, just hours after they were vaccinated against polio during a brief humanitarian truce between Israel and Hamas. (Mohamed El Saif/CBC)
And the number of civilian casualties continues to rise as ceasefire talks led by the United States, Qatar and Egypt continue without any results.
The polio vaccination campaigns, which took place during an eight-hour humanitarian ceasefire in a designated safe zone between Israel and Hamas on September 3, are part of international aid efforts to curb deaths from malnutrition and disease. The World Health Organization confirmed last month that an infant had been partially paralyzed by type 2 poliovirus, the first case in the region in 25 years.
Hanan Al-Dakki’s aunt says she was found at a neighbor’s house after an Israeli airstrike. (Mohamed El-Saif/CBC)
Mother died, father critically ill
But Hanan and Misuk’s aunt said they questioned whether a vaccination campaign to protect children against the virus would be worthwhile if the bombing would continue so soon after a lull in fighting ended.
“Just think about what has happened to our children, what could have happened beyond having their legs amputated? The fear they are in, and the lack of a future. That is gone,” Al Dukki said. “No future, no childhood, and now they have to have their legs amputated.”
Al-Dakki said the girls’ 25-year-old mother, Shaima Al-Dakki, was killed on the spot with her mobile phone in her hand.
Her father, Mohammed Al Dakki, sustained injuries that required the amputation of several fingers, and his sister said he remains in a critical condition and will have to undergo several major operations.
Al-Dakki said she is currently looking after her nieces and is their sole guardian, praying for their father’s safe recovery. She added that her nieces are suffering great pain due to a lack of medical equipment and treatment in Gaza.
Shafa al-Dakki says she was on the phone with her niece’s mother when an Israeli airstrike struck her home, killing the mother of two. (Mohamed El-Saif/CBC)
“The biggest loss is my mother and the other loss is my leg,” Al-Dukki said through tears, calling on other countries to intervene to provide urgent medical attention and treatment to injured children in Gaza.
The United Nations Relief and Work Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) wants to continue providing preventive healthcare and is planning a second round of polio vaccinations with the goal of vaccinating 640,000 children in the Gaza Strip, but with 90% of the population displaced and much of the territory covered in rubble, such a large-scale campaign poses major challenges.
Palestinian children wait to be vaccinated against polio at the United Nations medical centre in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on September 1. (Ramadan Abed/Reuters)
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